This text is part of:
[75]
came over the summit.
A deep voice behind us exclaimed: ‘Is not this superb!’
We turned and beheld the speaker, Lieut. Col. Platt, U. S. A., riding with Gen. Franklin and his staff.
The eyes of the general and of all his suite were bent in admiration upon the scene before us.
Through this valley for nearly a week Jackson and Hill have been marching and countermarching, for the irrepressible ‘Stonewall,’ leading the van of the Confederates, crossed near Point of Rocks on Friday, the 5th of September, and at ten o'clock, A. M., on the next day, his advance is said to have entered Frederick, its bands playing ‘Dixie’ and ‘My Maryland.’
On Sunday he is said to have attended service at the Presbyterian church.
On Monday, the 8th, troops have been continually coming in. Gen. Lee is reported to have opened recruiting offices for the purpose of obtaining Maryland volunteers, he having issued a proclamation, in which he said that he had entered the state ‘to rescue its people from thraldom.’
On Tuesday, the 9th, a large portion of the army of northern Virginia must have been lying in and around the town of Frederick.
On the 10th, two days ago, Jackson moved over South Mountain, the Maryland section of the Blue Ridge, to Cumberland Valley beyond.
We shall hear from him to our mortification and chagrin, later.
A division commanded by Gen. Walker is said to have returned down Pleasant Valley along the Monocacy and to have recrossed the Potomac.
A force under McLaws and Anderson is reported to have moved along South Mountain yonder, toward Maryland Heights.
It was a part of this last corps that we encountered two days later at Crampton's Gap.
It would appear then, that our slow movement since the 5th of the month had been to keep in a position to cover Washington and Baltimore, and, while observing the movements of the invaders, to permit their march into the interior sufficiently to secure their stand when attacked, at a point far enough inland from the Potomac to render their escape impossible without severe punishment and crippling their strength.
Now we are moving into Pleasant Valley as part of a force which is being thrown between Lee and the lower fords of the Potomac.
We camp in the undulating fields along the line of roads from Frederick to the Potomac and the road that crosses these nearly at right angles, leading to
Boston. Press of Deland and Barta, 1886.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.